Monday, April 9, 2012

I am a Human and I am a Glocalist

I had a great Sunday this weekend followed by an equally great Monday. In fact, if one connects the dots of what happens in his/her daily life, then every experience becomes a great one. Let me tell us the reason for keeping the title of today’s post as “I am a Human and I am a Globalist”. A few hours back, I was watching one of a master piece of bollywood industry titled “My name is Khan” in which the legendary Shahrukh Khan says: ‘my name is Khan and I am not a terrorist’. So that’s what gave me an idea of keeping this title.

As mentioned in the very first sentence of this post, that Sunday was followed by an equally good Monday; is because the Sunday Evening was spent on reading about few articles from here and there on the Global Trade & Business and on Monday I found myself bombarded with questions by few of my peers on the same topic. This is where I say we have to connect the dots in this precious life and understand that life is beautiful.

Actually on Monday, one of my friends had gone for an interview at a very famos financial institution and the question asked to him was “What’s your take on the Global Trade and how can Marketers influence the Global Trade?”

After the interview my friend called me and we discussed about the interview he had (we always do discuss this sought of things as we belong to the same brand of B-school “Auroras”). My friend had just completed his PGDM with Finance as specialization and I was amazed that he was the only one in that interview who was appreciated for a perfect answer to the question asked by the interviewer out of the herds of students from different B-schools in the city.

On discussing with him I found that my friend answered the question in two sentences: “Dear Sir, We are in the age where there is nothing called Local or Global, we have gone far away from it and we are in the world which is GLOCAL (Global +Local). So everyone whether it is a Marketer, politician, diplomat or a lay man, everyone has to have a GLOCAL vision and every one influences the World around”

After the discussion, I was drilling upon the deep unutilized resources in my brain and was trying to connect the dots between what I have been studying throughout my life during my schooling to graduation to post graduation. My friends answer was one of the best one I ever heard from him and to my surprise he said that he read about it on my blog and my notes on various sites and modified it while answering.

Then I started thinking that: is it enough to have a specialization in one subject in today’s world and look at the world from Finance angle if you are a finance expert, marketing angle if you are a marketing expert, political angel if you are a politician and so on?

The answer for this would be a straight NO. Every one, has to be a Glocalist today and that should be a school of thought for everyone in today’s age of new wave technology. That means a person today should not be just realist – who looks at the world from the angle of poser and geopolitical advantage; should not be just an environmentalist – who looks at the world from the prism of environment and measures to save it; should not be just a technologists – who believs that they are the founder of the modern world; should not be just a financial analyst or a marketer or a business man. Today we need people to be GLOCALIST – who are globally empowered even though their base is Local. That is one who understands the different views of global trade even though they is located in their local geographical location.

And what do we do to become a GLOCALIST? The answer is simple; we have to become a GENERALIST. A Jack of all trades is what is required by any industry today. And to create this generalist, the responsibility lies upon the universities and the educational institutions. The dominant trends within Universities and the think tanks is ever – narrower specializations and that’s what is requires to change drastically to create a new set of individuals who can be termed as GLOCAL.

Regards,

Rohit Tiwari

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The term “SUPER” and the Globalization


Had a great day yesterday devoted totally towards upgrading my knowledge on the subject of Globalization. While trying to browse and peek about the books on this subject, I came across a great piece of work by Thomas. L. Friedman (the distinguished writer of “The World is flat”). This book which caught my attention was titled as “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”. In this master piece on the subject of Globalization, Friedman has very carefully and convincingly portrayed how the term Globalization evolved after the world war and how the system of globalization differs from the era of “The Cold War” which prevailed before and during the world war.
I wanted to share something very interesting from the sea of knowledge I gained after reading this book. Friedman says that today’s world is governed by three major forces:
· The Super Powers
· The Super Markets
· The Super Individuals
These terms sounds very creative and they actually have something very important related to the term Globalization and the modern world. Let me explain you what the author meant by this words:
Ø The Super Powers refers to those countries/nation which have a great influence on the worldly trades and systems. For Instance USA after the World War emerged as the Super Power and it continues to dominate the world’s trade.
Look at the situation today. For long the World bank Chief had been an American National (which was as a part of protocol), but today the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have opposed saying that the chief should be selected on the basis of potential not on the basis of nationality. Therefore in a global world the trade is influenced by the acts of the Global Super Powers.
Ø The Super Markets refers to the World’s important Stock markets which has the capabilities of influencing the global trade. For example: the stock markets of USA, China, Europe, India and many such important nations. If any of this stock markets collapse, it will influence the global investments. For instance, when the Thai Currency - Baht was fluctuated the world market got influenced and the economic instability was seen in countries like Russia and Brazil because of the collapse in Thailand’s Stock Market.
Ø The Super Individuals refers to the individuals who can influence mass majority. For example a millionaire named Osama Bin Laden moved USA by his terrorist attacks. An individual in India named Anna Hazare started a great movement against corruption which did impact the Indian stock markets. Obama’s visit to India recently saw a great move in Indian stock market.
One will never understand the term globalization or the front page of morning financial newspapers unless one see it as a complex interaction between this three actors : Super power bumping up at super power, Super market influencing the super powers, super markets and super individual influencing the super power and vice verse.
Regards,
Rohit Tiwari